I live in Bernardsville, where I write poetry and fiction and publish Tiferet Journal (www.tiferetjournal.com). My poetry chapbook Sometimes You Sense the Difference was published by Finishing Line Press and my story collection Sympathetic People by Serving House Books. These poems are in a book-length manuscript I'm currently working on. More info about my publications and awards can be found at www.donnabaierstein.com.

﻿Watchman of the Night

An insomniac, he feels night’s muzzle tighten as he sits on the porch under one bare bulb like a close moon.

Soon, someone signs his name in a foreign tongue while crickets, elusive as lost eyelashes or Andalusian gypsies chirr in the country beyond the porch.

Bruised by near shadows, he decides to stuff his guilt once and for all into the o-shaped mouths of blossoms. But he’s still awake an hour later, and watches a sad-faced rabbit bedded in jungle grass, rediscovers that mounds of ivy breathe.

As the moon glints off the birdbath and dogs howl two doors down he watches his wife inside the house lift her hand to the phone before it rings.

Finally he burrows in bed beside her but still listens – this time for the sound of fences coming down. As a child, he wilted after dark: crossing an unmarked border he would lose his skin.

Voices would call his name. There would be searchlights and voices trilling his name, but he wouldn’t answer.

-originally published in Beloit Poetry Journal

Glen Echo

Turning, I harness an image of my two-year-old son in the mirror peeling above our heads. I see the mirror-image of a horse painted rose, brown, blue, oyster-white and a burnished brass pole.

Again and again, we pass a man whittling a lion, full-maned and burly. The man stands mute near the Wurlitzer organ, one constant in this whirl of noise: silvered strains flowing from paper rolls in its pipes: viola, flageolet, piccolo and bass. Castanets, a glockenspiel. Entranced, I imagine the next time I circle the mirrored canopy my hair will be the color of pale oysters, my son a grown man.

For in that hypnotic pool of our likeness—whittling man, white lights, ostriches and circus chariots--

the years quicken. As we dismount, we tilt on warped floorboards, lean on a far-sighted giraffe.

-originally published in The Washingtonian

Iphigenia

I remember the afternoon we entered the Tomb of the Bulls, remember its double-sloped ceiling and gaily-painted bands of lozenges and circles.

Inside, we saw a woman on terracotta, Iphigenia, being led to her sacrifice, armless, and carried by a winged creature.

That year, I turned to your face above all others, tracing the line of your brow, dropping the cloak of desire over your head.

It was Iphigenia her father chose to sacrifice so he could pilot his ships to Troy in fair winds.

But there in the tomb, Iphigenia remains with cryptic smile, always looking up toward a man who holds her with disregard.

The walls of the chamber-tomb were flaked, their colors bleached as a white-tuniced Apollo leads Iphigenia and her winged captor.

Massive, with muscular legs, the painted men are ruddy and full-featured while Iphigenia’s profile lies almost colorless on a light ground. Apollo himself is armed with bow and arrow.

That year, in love, I too was eager to accompany archers, angels, gods. But as the stories go, too often a god will visit, wound with his arrows, and depart.

Still, Iphigenia was finally saved. Artemis, virgin huntress and goddess of the white moon, rescued her from the altar, leaving a stag in her place.

In this life, only a few can resurrect the dead. Only a few pay close attention.